Fury (28 page)

God only knows what he was thinking. There must have been eighty people in the room. Forty of them cops. Maybe the collective pressure just got to be too much for him and he slipped a cog or something. Or maybe, as rumor around the department had it, he’d had a sudden vision of what his life in prison was going to look like. Either way, anything would have been better than what he did.

Chief Kesey stepped up to the microphone. Blaine Newton turned a page on his clipboard, cleared his throat, and said, “Chief Kesey, I was wondering if you were aware of the fact that at the time of her death, victim number eight, Kelly Doyle, was conducting an affair with Lieutenant Charles Donald?”

Kesey went white. “Excuse me, what did you—”

“I asked you if you were aware of the fact that Lieutenant Donald and Trashman victim number eight, Kelly Doyle, were conducting an affair at the time of her death, in nineteen ninety-eight.”

The Sheridan woman stepped forward. “Surely, Mr.…”

“Newton.”

“Surely, Mr. Newton, there must be some more appropriate venue for these sorts of unfounded allegations, than a moment such as—”

Newton had begun to sweat profusely. His voice rose an octave. He was reading now. “You might be interested to know that the
Seattle Sun
has obtained depositions from nine past and present employees of the Emerald Inn on Stone Way attesting to the fact that in early nineteen ninety-eight Detective Donald and Kelly Doyle met for afternoon liaisons on an average of three to four times a week. Sometimes more.”

“You’re a damn liar,” Kesey shouted.

Every camera in the room was grinding. Newton wiped his brow with his forarm. Kesey turned away from the audience. Said something. Neither the microphones nor the cameras picked up what he said. Those on the stage at the time later agreed that he’d been talking to Donald. “Tell him he’s a goddamn liar,” he’d said.

Newton was talking again. “Copies of the Seattle Police Department’s evidence room log books reveal that—”

At that point, Donald lost his marbles. Grabbed the Sheridan woman by the back of her hair, pulled her to his chest, and put a gun in her ear. “Keep away from me,” he said as he backed down the stairs, dragging Sheridan along with him. Her eyes were squeezed shut. Her lips moved as if in prayer. “Keep away from me,” he said again, grinding the pistol into the woman’s head.

“Let her go,” someone screamed.

“Now,” another voice shouted.

Most of the civilians were either huddled on the floor or sprinting for the doors at the back of the room. The rest of the crowd had guns out. The screaming to let her go came now from a dozen throats as Donald began to back down the aisle.

That’s when the Post guy got to his feet and started for Donald. Musta thought his shiny new silver medal made him bulletproof or something. “Now listen here…,” he said, reaching a big red hand out for Donald.

Donald shot him once in the heart. The old guy clutched his chest in disbelief, staggered backward into the row of folding chairs, and went down in a clatter. A woman dropped to her knees beside the old man. A little girl in a pink dress and white tights began to cry. A chorus of shouts. To put down the gun…to let her go now…roared, octaves below the girl’s high-pitched wail.

From there on, it was like a collage. Each of the three television cameras in the room was focused on something different. The local ABC affiliate stayed with Donald as he continued to edge toward the side door of the auditorium, with the Sheridan woman locked behind his forearm. He reached back and grabbed the door handle.

Some instinct in the Sheridan woman told her she’d be better off in a room full of cops. For the first time since the ordeal began, she opened her eyes. What she saw was the black nostrils of a dozen gun barrels pointed her way. Her reaction to the sight saved her life. She fainted dead away. Dropped to the floor so quickly that Donald was left staring down in disbelief at her motionless body.

Except for Donald, everybody in the room who was holding a gun used it. Sounded like some sort of salute. Donald was dead before he hit the floor. Calls for aide wagons and backup were being shouted in from all over the room. Cops were herding civilians and news crews out the back of the room. The woman and the girl pitched a fit, wouldn’t leave the old man. The cops let ’em stay.

Outside in the hall, CBS filled its feel-good quota with pictures of Robert Boyd—recipient of the mayor’s Whistle-blower’s Award—with his arms around his sobbing mother, patting her back and reminding her that they were both all right.

NBC was still inside the auditorium when the first gurney arrived and was waved toward Bill Post. NBC swung his camera in time to see a pair of EMTs push their way through a circle of cops to reach Dorothy Sheridan’s side. They quickly checked for wounds. Found none. Pulse. Strong. One lifted up Sheridan’s head. The other ran something under her nose. She frowned and shook her head. Ran a hand over her face and then suddenly sat up. She looked over her shoulder. A circle of feet obscured Donald’s mangled body. She hiccuped once and covered her mouth.

When she turned back, Chief Kesey had taken one of her hands. The camera mike wasn’t close enough to pick up what she said, but even amateur lip readers could plainly make out the words. “I quit.”

When he swung back to Bill Post, they were performing CPR. Fifteen and a breath. Fifteen and a breath. Serious head shaking. Fifteen and a breath. Fifteen and a breath. Suddenly the chest compression guy stopped. Put his hand flat on the chest. Then replaced his hand with his ear. “He’s breathing again,” he announced.

His partner clapped an oxygen mask on Bill Post’s face and then began carefully separating the folds of the old man’s clothes. Gently probing for the wound. Sport coat unbuttoned and parted. Same for the shirt. Undershirt ignominiously pulled up along his torso and bunched beneath his southernmost chin. The EMT frowned. He looked up at his buddy and said, “Nothing. Not a mark on him.”

The other guy checked his pulse and then listened to his heart. “He’s doing fine.”

Together they carefully rolled him over. Same deal. They pulled his undershirt back down and rolled him onto his back. Felt around in the shirt. Then in the sport coat. The chest compresser’s hand came out of the coat with the silver Good Citizen Award in it. The once-symmetrical silver disk had been warped into the shape of a wavy potato chip.

“Bullet hit this,” he announced. “Saved his life.”

By the time they had Bill Post strapped to a gurney and rolling toward the doors, his eyes were open and the room was empty. Most of the throng had followed Donald’s body out the door. The stragglers left with Post. An officer poked his head in.

“We need to seal the room,” he said.

NBC nodded, gathered his stuff. As he stepped into the hall, the Boyd kid came sauntering over. “Left my jacket in there,” he said.

“Sorry…you’ll have to…” the cop began.

“Robert here won the mayor’s Whistle-blower Award today,” NBC said.

“Did you, now?” the cop said.

“Sure did,” the kid replied.

The cop smiled down at Robert. Pulled the door open. “Hurry up, now. Go get it.” The kid ducked inside.

“It true what they say? We had cops killing cops in there?”

NBC nodded. “You wanna see it?” he asked.

The cop looked around the chaotic hallway. “Sure,” he said.

NBC turned the camera on. Rewound to when Kesey stepped up to answer the question, then turned the screen to face the cop. His face sagged as he watched the three minutes of tape.

“Jesus,” he said.

The door opened and Robert Boyd appeared, wearing a brown-plaid wool jacket. As the door eased closed, NBC noticed a sudden flash of gold, like a fish rising in a stream. He watched Robert Boyd kindly take his distraught mother by the arm and help her down the hall to the corner, where he looked back with a barracuda smile before steering his mom toward the front doors.

NBC pulled open the auditorium door and peered inside. Right between the state seal and the city seal. Big, thick, gold letters. The tail of the
Y
looped around to make a circle.